Muddy and me
Muddy and me
When the world was White, the blues was Black. When the blues became money and began to get the recognition of White teenagers, the blues changed its allegiance, and turned as white as a sheet, as White as snow. Let me be clear, that wasn’t a racial allusion, although it could be a decent double entendre. “But which way does my entendre bend?” Does it matter? To some it does. A lot. More than even 40 years ago. Today, racial tensions that were once like warm milk on a stove, are beginning to ripple from a manufactured heat.
I remember first hearing Muddy Water’s version Hootchie Cootchie Man many decades ago. I thought it was the most primal thing I’d ever heard, musically speaking. Muddy’s voice made the recording engineer’s needle jump like an old analog record played too loud. It was explosive. When it was recorded, back in 1954, it was completely foreign to at least half of America—and, to almost all of the rest of the world. That was the blues when the blues was Black.
1954 was the year I was born. The same year Muddy Recorded Hootchie Cootchie Man. The same year Elvis cut his first sessions for Sun Records. Like Muddy and Elvis, I was born in Mississippi. My grandparents were delta sharecroppers. My mother picked cotton. I pissed in a slop jar at night because the bathroom was on the other side of a dark old house. So, a slop jar was normal for poor Southerners, White or Black.
I ran almost naked in the heat in the summer, and I was never, ever happier. In many ways, my childhood would’ve been little different than it would've been for Muddy Waters’ son.
My father was a barnstorming baseball player, a poor hunky, home-run king, from North Eastern Pennsylvania, a steel town, like every other town, with literally miles and miles of burning mills, smoking, molten steel, pumping black smoke into the atmosphere. The people loved the life, lived good, better than any previous generation of E. European hunkies ever had. That was our White privilege. To live better than previous generations of poor White Southern Crackers, pissing in slop jars, or the recent escapees from the hell that was Europe throughout most of the 20th century, to maybe, one day becoming a hunky home-run king, living in Southern town. That was our White privilege.
Muddy Waters brought the Mississippi blues up from the delta, like literally, millions of other Black men, who got the hell out of the South, following The Civil War, the bloodiest war we ever fought, in terms of American blood. Muddy played and sang like Robert Johnson and Son House. It was clear that Muddy had listened hard, and probably copied Robert’s licks off a phonograph record, played on a portable phonograph, like the one my mother bought for my sister and me when we were little.
I was probably no more than four when I first heard Elvis; “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Hound Dog.” ‘Too Much,” another Elvis song, was my favorite. The Everly Brothers “Wake Up Little Susie,” was a priceless window into a teenage world. I was transfixed by it all, the sounds, the way the musicians looked, it’s meaning, which was an effortless cool that transcended the best my imagination could offer.
I was about 20 when I first heard Muddy’s version of Hootchie Cootchie Man. By that time I was a man, more or less, and the sound of rock and roll paled by comparison. At least, the kind of rock and roll my own generation had begun to make.
From 1964 till 1973, rock and roll was a rocket. Innovation churned so fast, you could barely keep up. But, after 1973, the last great year for rock and roll, in particular, rock music, the blues, deep and Black began to fill my void. Besides, as a man, I needed a man’s music. The teenage stuff would no longer do. Muddy Waters’ song, Hootchie Cootchie Man, told my story, just like Elvis and The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Otis Redding told parts of my story. From then on, though, it was Muddy and me—all the way.
Mark Magula
When the world was White, the blues was Black. When the blues became money and began to get the recognition of White teenagers, the blues changed its allegiance, and turned as white as a sheet, as White as snow. Let me be clear, that wasn’t a racial allusion, although it could be a decent double entendre. “But which way does my entendre bend?” Does it matter? To some it does. A lot. More than even 40 years ago. Today, racial tensions that were once like warm milk on a stove, are beginning to ripple from a manufactured heat.
I remember first hearing Muddy Water’s version Hootchie Cootchie Man many decades ago. I thought it was the most primal thing I’d ever heard, musically speaking. Muddy’s voice made the recording engineer’s needle jump like an old analog record played too loud. It was explosive. When it was recorded, back in 1954, it was completely foreign to at least half of America—and, to almost all of the rest of the world. That was the blues when the blues was Black.
1954 was the year I was born. The same year Muddy Recorded Hootchie Cootchie Man. The same year Elvis cut his first sessions for Sun Records. Like Muddy and Elvis, I was born in Mississippi. My grandparents were delta sharecroppers. My mother picked cotton. I pissed in a slop jar at night because the bathroom was on the other side of a dark old house. So, a slop jar was normal for poor Southerners, White or Black.
I ran almost naked in the heat in the summer, and I was never, ever happier. In many ways, my childhood would’ve been little different than it would've been for Muddy Waters’ son.
My father was a barnstorming baseball player, a poor hunky, home-run king, from North Eastern Pennsylvania, a steel town, like every other town, with literally miles and miles of burning mills, smoking, molten steel, pumping black smoke into the atmosphere. The people loved the life, lived good, better than any previous generation of E. European hunkies ever had. That was our White privilege. To live better than previous generations of poor White Southern Crackers, pissing in slop jars, or the recent escapees from the hell that was Europe throughout most of the 20th century, to maybe, one day becoming a hunky home-run king, living in Southern town. That was our White privilege.
Muddy Waters brought the Mississippi blues up from the delta, like literally, millions of other Black men, who got the hell out of the South, following The Civil War, the bloodiest war we ever fought, in terms of American blood. Muddy played and sang like Robert Johnson and Son House. It was clear that Muddy had listened hard, and probably copied Robert’s licks off a phonograph record, played on a portable phonograph, like the one my mother bought for my sister and me when we were little.
I was probably no more than four when I first heard Elvis; “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Hound Dog.” ‘Too Much,” another Elvis song, was my favorite. The Everly Brothers “Wake Up Little Susie,” was a priceless window into a teenage world. I was transfixed by it all, the sounds, the way the musicians looked, it’s meaning, which was an effortless cool that transcended the best my imagination could offer.
I was about 20 when I first heard Muddy’s version of Hootchie Cootchie Man. By that time I was a man, more or less, and the sound of rock and roll paled by comparison. At least, the kind of rock and roll my own generation had begun to make.
From 1964 till 1973, rock and roll was a rocket. Innovation churned so fast, you could barely keep up. But, after 1973, the last great year for rock and roll, in particular, rock music, the blues, deep and Black began to fill my void. Besides, as a man, I needed a man’s music. The teenage stuff would no longer do. Muddy Waters’ song, Hootchie Cootchie Man, told my story, just like Elvis and The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Otis Redding told parts of my story. From then on, though, it was Muddy and me—all the way.
Mark Magula